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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

CAREFREE (1938)

After a year’s break for separate assignments, Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers got ‘together again’ (see poster) for this not-quite musical, more Screwball Comedy with songs. Far less stylized than earlier entries (real exteriors/no Big White Set), this psychiatric farce has Dr. Astaire hypnotize commitment-phobic Rogers into marrying Ralph Bellamy just as she's falling for Fred. And vice versa though he won’t admit it. (Rogers falling first yet another formula reversal.) The comedy is plenty goofy, if not much fun, but the sparse numbers are terrific. Ginger gets a rare vocal solo in ‘The Yam’ before Fred joins the new dance sensation. (Again see poster. The dance short lived, but the number really swings!) Rogers in peak dancing form here (what line!); as is Fred in a nifty novelty golf number.* So too Irving Berlin with the inevitable hit song ‘Change Partners.’ (‘Must you dance; every dance; with the same fortunate man.’ No doubt sweating blood to find the perfect word in ‘fortunate.’) But with Ginger now RKO’s biggest draw, the series pretty much stopped when this one only broke even. Next year’s bio-pic, THE STORY OF VERNON AND IRENE CASTLE, a one-off period piece; and their somewhat accidental reunion for M-G-M’s THE BARKLEYS OF BROADWAY/’49, something of a curate’s egg. (This is a second-look Write-Up; now with poster. See below)

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *Katharine Hepburn pulls a similar stunt in PAT AND MIKE/’52, like Fred hitting a series of teed up golf balls to rhythmic perfection.

DOUBLE-BILL: For a better idea of how Fred & Ginger might have kept the series going, note the working-class set-up of FOLLOW THE FLEET/’36 slipped between the more typical ‘swells’ & professional entertainers they play in TOP HAT/’35 and SWING TIME/’36.

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